‘2 Guns’ Review

Baltasar Kormákur‘s “2 Guns,” in terms of buddy-cop movies, pales before some of the better examples of the genre, like “48 Hrs,” or “Lethal Weapon,’ though that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have anything going for it.

It’s greatest strength are the ‘two guns,’ in “2 Guns,” Denzel Washington (Bobby) and Mark Wahlberg (Stig). When they’re on the screen – with their constant bickering and chatter, which comes off a bit homoerotic due to how comfortable the characters (and the actors) appear to be with each other – the movie is pretty interesting.

Not so much when the overly-complicated, as opposed to complex, plot is being emphasized. Things revolves around Bobby (who’s an undercover DEA Agent) and Stig (who I think works for Naval Intelligence, which is novel – and a bit odd) rob a bank, thinking that the money it holds belongs to Mexican drug kingpin Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos). They eventually learn – because a lot of strangers are trying to kill them – that the bank’s money is owned not only by Greco, but the CIA as well.

Representing the CIA is Earl (Bill Paxton, who’s always fun to watch), a sociopath that seems a crudely-rendered metaphor for American exceptionalism (and interventionism) but that could be me reading into things.

That being said, Paxton invests some qualities in the character I am reasonably comfortable saying weren’t in the script.

The movie is based on the comic “2 Guns,” from BOOM Comics, and while I have never read it, I doubt that any comic is as convoluted as this movie was.

Nothing feels quite organic, which is the feeling I tend to get when a movie has been screen written to death (or close enough that a pulse is almost undetectable).